


Claustrophobia

by athousandwinds



Category: Swordspoint Series - Ellen Kushner
Genre: M/M, Yuletide 2007
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-21
Updated: 2011-01-21
Packaged: 2017-10-14 22:54:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/154354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athousandwinds/pseuds/athousandwinds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of Swordspoint, Alec can't sleep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Claustrophobia

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wildestranger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildestranger/gifts).



"I was afraid for you," Alec says candidly into the darkness. Richard's sweat-soaked body is still, breathing deeply against his side; all Alec has to do to prove he is not alone is to reach out. "It's not that you couldn't kill them all, it's that they had you hemmed in. Do you know what that's like? Of course you don't."

Alec's hands clench briefly on the blanket, in lieu of squeezing Richard's hand.

"They've always had me like that. It's a bit like having a shroud before you're buried. They're all mouldering corpses, they just don't know it yet. Either you or I will destroy them."

He knows the exact moment when this futile nihilism developed in him. They tore up his thesis - fine - they burnt his books - fine - but then they still made him stay, to eat his failure, when Harry was thrown out. It feels like he's a child in a permanent tantrum, beating at his nursery door.

"Richard," he says. He will never say any of these things in the light of day, when Richard can look at him and know they're true. He will never say any of these things if he thinks Richard can hear him, even if he wants Richard to hear him. "I - "

Love you, he could have said, but it's inaccurate. Love is a pleasanter thing than this mad possessiveness, this hopeless fascination with everything Richard says and does. Alec is a ghost of a man who preys on the dead-in-the-head, who lives in a world where everything good is just out of reach. Alec is half-sick of shadows. Richard, lying next to him, is solid and real, more real than Janine (a memory) or Hugo (Ginny's other half, who fades when she's not there). Richard will outlive all these people when he's dead; he's something entirely more vivid than mere humanity.

Richard reaches out and takes Alec's hand. For a moment he is sick with horror and delight, but Richard only says, "Go to sleep, Alec."

Richard's weight presses against him as he shifts back down into the bed, something comfortable. It takes Alec some time to realise that lying like this, with Richard close and Alec calm, means that they are both happy.


End file.
